spirit. Of the prominent Republican statesmen we find Senators Sherman, Henderson, Morton, and we believe Howe, and Representatives Stevens, Butler, and others, in favor of paying the bonds according to the Democratic platform, in "lawful money," while Gov. Seymour and a respectable section of the Democratic party seem to advocate . making the greenbacks as good as gold; in which event the question in which manner payment is to be made wholly disappears. As a singular and unlooked-for concession in favor of what has been regarded as a Republican principle, the Democratic platform recommends such an adjustment of the tariff to the internal revenue as shall incidentally protect our American manufactures. True, the clause is equivocally drawn, but this is its only unequivocal rendition. The Republican platform is silent on the question, but three fourths of Republican politicians would endorse this feature of the Democratic platform. Upon the question of taxing the bonds, the Republican resolution for “equal taxation," if interpreted by the votes of a majority of the Republicans in Congress on the Bill passed by the House to tax the interest on the National bonds, differs not materially from the Democratic platform. The most important difference, and that which calls forth the adverse predictions above referred to, lies in the attitude of the two platforms toward the Reconstruction policy of Congress. The Republican platform endorses it, and pledges to carry it out. The Democratic platform denounces it as unconstitutional, but leaves open and undecided the course they should pursue in the event of their success.

In Reconstruction, therefore, lies the gist of the political issue. To this both parties refer when they charge-the one, that a Democratic victory means revolution, and the other, that a Republican triumph would result in the unconstitutional subjugation of the Southern States to the colored race. Underlying this question of reconstruction is that question of sovereignty of race, which may be pregnant with dangers and convulsions no less fearful than those which have arisen out of the slavery question. As prejudices and falsehoods have as often given rise to wars as principles or truths, it does not dispose of the negro-question to argue, or even prove, that repugnance to the colored race is a groundless prejudice or the result of miseducation. It is undeniable that this prejudice exists, in so far that, if it were to be submitted to the vote of the white people

of the United States, whether, in all our Governments, from that of the Nation, through the State, County, and City, down to the School District, blacks should be admitted to equal participation with whites in the right to vote and hold office, the majority would be heavy against it in all the States south and west of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There are a few who would go all lengths for universal negro suffrage as an abstract principle, independent of political necessity; but they are not a twentieth of the number of those who assent to negro suffrage as the only tangible means of securing the supremacy of loyal men at the South. The last is the only ground on which Congress could hope to carry the Northern States in favor of negro suffrage as a means of reconstruction, and even on this issue the Republican party did not feel in condition to disdain the aid which their principles would receive at the polls from the powerful name of Gen. Grant. Several contingencies may reveal the weakness which honeycombs the Republican party on the abstract question of universal suffrage. If it should appear that colored votes will not secure the ascendency of loyal men at the South, the broken reed would be discarded. If it should result in a clannish preference for blacks for office, it will fall into increased disfavor. Many Republicans blush to-day at the prospect that black men, of whatever talents or abilities, may sit in the United States Senate and House, or act as Governors of States. If the abilities and character should be wanting, the disgraceful conduct which might be overlooked in a white Senator or Governor, would kindle fiery indignation against a suffrage system which permitted the disgrace to come from an African. On the other hand, every day lessens the feeling of partisan hostility toward the rebels. Popular sentiment runs a race with the President and Congress in granting universal amnesty, and removing political disabilities. The importance of confining office and power to those who were loyal during the war disappears with the growth of the conviction that all are loyal

now.

In this unsettled state of public opinion, reconstruction on the basis of universal suffrage is neither assured by the election of Grant, nor overthrown by the election of Seymour, but depends largely on other contingencies. The moral effect of the election of Seymour would be immense through its influence upon the Supreme

Court, on Congress, and on the Southern people. It would be the apparent vox populi against the reconstruction policy of Congress. The two Houses would still remain Republican, and their complexion could not be changed for two years, perhaps not for four, unless some of the present members should change their views. While the direct exercise of the presidential powers alone could not without revolution overturn the reconstruction policy of Congress, these powers aided by others, might. The Supreme Court has at no time been trustworthy for more than three votes out of eight in favor of the reconstruction policy, and since the separation of Chief-Justice Chase from the Republican party, and his strong enunciation of the States' rights theory of reconstruction, it would be reasonable to expect that the Supreme Court would, especially in the event of Seymour's election, decide the Reconstruction Acts unconstitutional.

The negro suffrage element in reconstruction is also exposed to danger from other causes. The platform of the Republican party agrees with that of the Democratic in declaring that the control of the suffrage question belongs to the States alone. The same doctrine is made part of the Constitution by the XIVth Amendment, under which the reconstructed States are admitted. This provides that wherever the majority of the people of a State disfranchise the minority on account of race or color, the representation of the State in Congress and in the Electoral College shall be reduced in the proportion that the number excluded from the suffrage bears to the whole number of adult male citizens. The right of the majority of the people of any State to disfranchise the minority being thus made part of the Constitution of the United States, all Acts of Congress, or Constitutions or Acts of any State, inconsistent therewith, are void. The Acts to prevent the disfranchisement of the blacks by excluding whites from voting unless they accept the political equality of all men, are probably consistent with the XIVth Amendment, and would not be annulled by it. Not so, however, the Acts of Congress providing, as the condition of the return of those States to the Union, that the readmitted State shall not disfranchise any of its citizens on account of race or color. This would be clearly void. The whites, by voting solid, have a sufficient majority to disfranchise the blacks in all the States except South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana,

and even in Mississippi they have recently procured a sufficient number of the blacks to vote with them to defeat the very Constitution which was to have secured equal political rights to all. Whichever of the two candidates may be elected, therefore, it is plain that reconstruction, on the basis of universal suffrage, will still have to contend against the repugnance to negro equality at the North in both parties; a probable adverse decision of the Supreme Court; and, possibly, the votes of the white majority of the people of the Southern States, changing or amending their constitutions.

It will be aided, indeed, by the powerful arguments that the colored race are now in possession of the ballot; that they have thus far used it on the whole wisely, prudently, and with a peaceful tendency; that prior to its conferment upon them every tendency of the white voting class at the South was toward oppression, black codes, slavery, the restoration of rebels to power and disunion, and that the continuance of political rights in the black race is essential to their protection, promotive of their industry, conducive to the peace of Southern society, and indeed, essential to the welfare of the country and the maintenance of the Union. But all these arguments, though satisfactory to the nation at large, like the arguments against slavery, will utterly fail if the question be left to the Southern States. If all these reasons for colored suffrage be true, the Republican party will have fallen almost as far short of securing these ends in leaving the question to the Southern States, as the Democratic party in denouncing universal suffrage as unconstitutional

Looking at the personal characters of the two candidates, we must conclude that revolution under the administration of either would be alike impossible. Gov. Seymour, while radically hostile to any introduction of the colored race into citizenship, is by personal constitution and judgment cautious to the verge of timidity, and legal to the extreme of technicality, in the modes by which he would attain these results. While he has none of the executive or military vigor which might be relied on to suppress a rebellion, he has still less of the misguided energy which would inaugurate one. With the twothirds vote of both Houses of Congress threatening him with impeachment and removal at the first revolutionary act, he would be powerless to effect a revolution if he had the folly to attempt it.

On the other hand, Gen. Grant, having invested not a feather's weight of influence for or against colored suffrage, and having by his letter of acceptance held himself free to act as circumstances might dictate, and being disposed by his antecedents as a Democrat to place a very limited estimate on the intrinsic value of colored suffrage, will acquiesce heartily in any constitutional action which the votes of the majority of the people of a particular State, the decision of the Supreme Court, or the action of the majority in Congress, may render expedient. In short, the approaching election, however it may turn, can hardly dispose of the negro-question, which must continue to agitate the country until the colored race shall have risen to a higher intellectual and social position than they now occupy.

Since the election of a President leaves the political status of the colored race still open to be adjusted by future, and probably by State, legislation, and since no rights are foreclosed or questions settled by it, it is idle to predict either revolution or the subjugation of any State or community to negrorule as the result of it. In fact, as the suppression of the great rebellion determined that the preservation of the Union shall not depend on the election of a particular candidate to the Presidency, so the protracted after-struggle between Congress and President Johnson, culminating in his impeachment and escape by a single vote from removal, determines that hereafter political policies are to be shaped by the democratic power of Congress and not by the autocratic power of the President. The war for the Union established the supremacy of the Federal Government over the States. The triumph of Congress over fifty vetoes, and the trial and acquittal of the President, vindicated the supremacy of the legislative over the executive. Nor is this vindication rendered less effective by the acquittal of the President than it would have been by his removal. The power of the British Parliament to transfer the Crown was better illustrated by electing William of Orange and Mary, King and Queen of England, while James II. still remained alive and at liberty, than it would have been if he had been executed. In the former case a vacancy would have compelled an election. In the latter the election removed the King. So the conviction of President Johnson would have proved the power of Congress to remove; but his acquittal proved their higher power to remove or not

as they thought best. To remove would have demonstrated the temporary success of an antagonistic party; to forego removing was the calm vindication of conscious and absolute supremacy. The effect must be to vastly diminish the political importance of the election of President, and to increase relatively the importance of elections of Senators and Congressmen. By dividing the excitement incident to the settlement of im. portant political issues among many candidates and distributing it over several elections, instead of concentrating it upon one, the strain on our institutions is lessened, and the tendency to revolution as the result of presidential elections is happily diminished.

In the selection of their candidates both parties have done themselves signal justice. It is to be regretted that the vituperations incident to our mode of conducting a politi cal campaign should descend to the littleness of attempting to obscure the military glory of Grant or the parliamentary abilities of Colfax, the political integrity of Seymour or the gallantry and courage of Blair. If Napoleon- or Wellington or Jackson or Taylor was a butcher in being unwilling to lose a battle to save the lives of a few, when by gaining the battle he would save the lives of many, then is Grant a butcher. But, since in this sense all war is butchery, the butcher par excellence is the first of warriors. If to believe that the election of an anti-slavery President would result in secession and civil strife, and that the evils of slavery were far lighter than the horrors of civil war, proves a man a devotee of slavery, then were both Seymour and Grant advocates of slavery in the days prior to the war. If to believe that the South could never be subdued by force, that the war must be ended by compromise, and that emancipation only rendered compromise more difficult, were more than an error of judgment, then Mr. Seymour was guilty of something worse than such an error during the war.

After Gen. Grant has successfully commanded the armies of the Union, won in person a score of hotly-contested battles against some of the ablest generals of the age, and planned and in their most important and difficult features executed the campaigns by which the rebellion was subdued, it is in vain to attempt to deny him the highest executive powers. Compared with the Atlas-burden of executive responsibility which he bore as General-in-Chief, the duties of President would be similar but light. He descends

from the command of a million and a half of troops to the control of forty thousand officeholders. The transition from General of the Army of Northern Virginia to President of Washington College, could hardly lighten the burden of Gen. Lee more than the transfer of Grant from the chief command of all our armies during the crisis of the struggle for the Union to the quiet administration of the duties of President of the United States would be attended by relief instead of anxiety. Gov. Seymour possesses eminent abilities, and underlying his political career are amiable qualities of mind and heart, which are harmoniously attended by that external dignity and personal grace which should adorn the presidential office. Gov. Seymour's talents are greater in debate than in office, more rhetorical than executive. As a Senator, had the complexion of the New York Legislature admitted of his choice for that office, he might have won, by his suavity in discussion, something of that personal popularity, influence, and esteem from his opponents, which distinguish Reverdy Johnson. Diplomatic by nature, he would make an excellent Secretary of State. We have hardly a more admirable presiding officer. His disposition tends toward harmony and compromise. Like Gerrit Smith, he entertains no political opinion which he would not waive rather than see it made the cause of bloodshed. He is a peaceman, a compromiser, and reconciler, by conviction, instinct, and habit. Of course, when such a disposition, in revolutionary times, is brought into conflict with men impossible to persuade and willing to fight for their opinions, it yields, and whatever duties depend upon its vigor go unperformed. Horatio Seymour would have made a good President under the order of things that prevailed before the war, when the most adroit compromiser was the greatest statesman. While Grant is quietly and unaffectedly a gentleman of the military pattern, Seymour is conspicuously and attractively a gentleman of the drawing-room pattern. Both have treated their rivals generously, and have secured their hearty support and respect by so doing. Both would agree much more nearly in their political views, and in the political course they would pursue under the same circumstances, than the more violent followers and partisans of either would suppose. They would differ chiefly in that, while Seymour would use all the influence of the presidential office to further the political opinions of his party, Gen. Grant would administer the office

with that colorless freedom from party influences which is one of the most fortunate qualities of his own mind, and which has distinguished so eminently his military career. Under Seymour, every energy of the presidential office and patronage would be employed to secure, by peaceful and lawful means, the uncontrolled ascendency of the white race, and exclusion of the black from voting or holding office in any State, and especially in the Federal Government. Under Gen. Grant, few or no attempts would be made from the White House to guide or control the legislation of Congress, but the energy and patronage of the office would be employed with commendable freedom from political influences, and with an eye comparatively single to a vigorous, pure, and economical administration of details, to the reduction of expenses, to the collection of revenue, to the punishment of crime and protection of society.

In the respective availability of the two candidates before the people, the Republican party has reason for confidence but not for assumption. When it is remembered that President Lincoln was first elected only because the Democratic party were divided, and by a minority vote; that at his second election a change of only thirty-six thousand votes, rightly distributed, would have elected McClellan, and that in the State elections held since the adoption of the present reconstruction policy by Congress, the Democratic party have carried the States of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania (partially), Ohio, California, and Oregon, it will be seen that the contest will be close, and the result is not yet assured. If the Republican party are wise they will not rely strongly on carrying many of the Southern States. The President's last proclamation of amnesty and the Acts of Congress restoring disabilities of rebels have nearly ended the partial disfranchisement of the whites. The entire white population of the South outnumbers the black, in all but two or three States, by two to one. A few of the blacks can be brought to support the Democratic ticket to their own disfranchisement, as in Mississippi. Not a few whites that have voted for reconstruction on the present basis, in order to get back into the Union, will vote for disfranchising the blacks at the first opportunity.

On any question of supremacy of race at the South, therefore, the Republican party cannot count upon carrying the majority of the Southern States. In the Northern States

the momentum acquired by the party of the Union and Freedom during the war is very great, but is gradually diminishing as the war becomes a historic memory instead of an everpresent crisis. It is fortunate for the Republican party that in Gen. Grant's personal character is combined at once all that is admirable in military achievement, with more than a civilian's respect for law and order, and that the cry of military despotism has no terrors, for a people who have watched his superior readiness to subject the military to the civil power. Gen. Grant's conservatism and freedom from political bias, especially upon reconstruction questions, his magnanimity toward the rebels whom he conquered with the sword and yet saved from punishment or persecution, his deference for the rightful authority of Congress as the supreme legislative and political power, his respect for law, and his desire for peace, give him a hold on the people as a statesman which his success as a soldier, however brilliant, could never have won. If any judgment may be formed of the sentiment of the people from the course of the more independent and nonpartisan press, and the public expressions of prominent civilians and soldiers who have

acted at times with either party, the friends of Gen. Grant may count, in the present stage of the contest, upon being largely reinforced by that floating and undecided vote which exercises the preponderating influence in all closely-contested elections.

Especially will this avail if, as appears probable from the revolutionary letter of Gen. Blair, written prior to his nomination, and the utterances of such Southern leaders as Wise, Vance, Hampton and N. B. Forrest, the Democrats themselves shall furnish the Republican orators and journals with evidence that even a strong minority of the Democratic party mean to revolutionize the Southern State Governments by force in the event of their success.

It may safely be predicted that the American people will elect the candidates of whichsoever party may seem to them most likely to perfect the reconstruction of the Union peacefully, to maintain harmony between the va rious sections, States, and races, and to administer the government with economy and fidelity.

Whichever party can be clearly convicted of contemplating violence and revolution is already defeated.

WE have from the pen of a lady a new, and, judging from a cursory glance at several characteristic parts of it, a much improved, English version* of Lessing's dramatic chefd'œuvre, his widely and justly celebrated "Nathan the Wise." This is so much the more agreeable, as within a year or two past our attention has several times been called to the subject of Lessing, partly in a new biography of him, partly by a number of more or less extended notices of his life and writings. The contents of Nathan were too unique and attractive to allow them long to remain confined within the author's own language, and we are therefore not at all surprised to find an English translation as early as 1791, (but a little over a decennium after the first edition of the original,) and a second edition of this printed in London in 1805. Since that date the lovers of good literature

*Lessing's Nathan the Wise. Translated by Ellen Frothingham. Leypoldt & Holt.

not familiar with the original, have known the work chiefly from W. Taylor's admirable "Historic Survey," (London, 1828,) in the first volume of which we find no less than 277 pages occupied with an examination of Lessing with especial reference to Nathan, from which long extracts are given in translation at the end. Taylor went so far in his admiration of the work as to recommend it for translation into the Oriental languages: "Asian heroes people the scene; the Eastern costume is sufficiently observed in the manners of the personages to adapt it for sympathy where the action passes; and it contains lessons of tolerance and liberality which Islamism as well as Christianity should aspire to learn. . . . The voice of genius can annihilate both space and time, and bind in immortal coöperation the chosen intellects of earth to forward the instruction of the human race, to ennoble its personal morality, and to ameliorate its public institutions." In spite of this high credential, it would